Where the Strange Trails Go Down Part 12

"Back to the Big Town?" I suggested. "To G.o.d's Country?"

"Oh, no; not back to the States," he hastened to a.s.sure me. "I haven't finished my job out here. I want to get back to my people in the interior again."

Whether you approve of foreign missions or not, it is impossible to withhold your respect and admiration from such men as that. Though at home they are too often the b.u.t.ts of ignorant criticisms and cheap witticisms, they are carrying civilization, no less than Christianity, into the world's dark places. They are the real pioneers. You might remember this the next time an appeal is made in your church for foreign missions.

The young Englishman was likewise an outpost of progress, though in a different fashion. For seven years he had worn the uniform of an officer in the Royal Navy. At the close of the war, seeing small prospect of promotion, he had entered the employ of a British company which held a vast timber concession in the teak forests of northern Siam, far up, near the Chinese border. He was, he explained, a "girdler," which meant that his duties consisted in riding through the forest area allotted to him, selecting and girdling those trees which, three years later, would be cut down. To girdle a tree, as everyone knows, is to kill it, which is what is wanted, there being no market for green teak, which warps. He remained in the forest for four weeks at a stretch, he told me, without seeing a white man's face, his only companions his coolies and his Chinese cook. His domain comprised a thousand square miles of forest through which he moved constantly on horseback, followed by elephants bearing his camp equipage and supplies. Once each month he spent three days in the village where the company maintains its field headquarters. Here he played tennis and bridge with other girdlers--young Englishmen like himself who had come in from their respective districts to make their monthly reports--and in gleaning from the eight-weeks-old newspapers the news of that great outside world from which he was a voluntary exile. One would have supposed that, after seven years spent in the jovial atmosphere of a warship's wardroom, his solitary life in the great forests would quickly have become intolerable, and I expressed myself to this effect.

But he said no, that he was neither lonely nor unhappy in his new life, and that his fellow foresters, all of whom had seen service in the Army, the Navy or the Royal Air Force, were equally contented with their lot. I could understand, though. The wilderness holds no terrors for anyone who went through the h.e.l.l of the Great War.

We dropped anchor at midnight off Chantaboun, where a launch was waiting to take him ash.o.r.e. He was going up-country, he told me, to inspect a timber concession recently acquired by the company that employed him. Yes, he would be the only white man, but he would not be lonely. Besides, he would only be in the interior a couple of months, he said. He followed the coolies bearing his luggage down the gangway and dropped lightly into the tossing launch, then looked up to wave me a farewell.

"Good luck," he called cheerily.

"Good luck to _you_!" said I.

That is the worst of this gadding up and down the earth--it is always--"How d'ye do?" and "Good-by."

Three days out of Bangkok the anchor of the _Chutututch_ rumbled down off Kep, on the coast of Cambodia. Kep consists of a ramshackle wooden pier that reaches seaward like a lean brown finger, an equally decrepit custom house, a tin-roofed bungalow which the French Government maintains for the use of those fever-stricken officials who need the tonic of sea air, a cl.u.s.ter of bamboo huts thatched with nipa--nothing more. You will not find the place on any map; it is too small.

It is in the neighborhood of three hundred kilometers from Kep to Pnom-Penh, the capital of Cambodia, and for nearly the entire distance the highway has been hewn through the most savage jungle you can imagine. There was only one motor car in Kep and this I hired for the journey. I say hired, but bought would be nearer the truth. It was an aged and decrepit Renault, held together with string and wire, and suffering so badly from asthma and rheumatism that more than once I feared it would die on my hands before I reached my destination. It had as nurses two Annamites, who took unwarranted liberties with the truth by describing themselves as _mechaniciens_. Accompanying them were two sullen-faced Chinese. All four of them, I found, proposed to accompany me to Pnom-Penh. At this I protested vigorously, on the ground that, as the lessee of the machine, I had the right to choose my traveling companions, but my objections were overruled by the _Chef des Douanes_, the only French functionary in Kep, who a.s.sured me that if the car went the quartette must go, too. One of the Annamites, he explained, was the chauffeur, the other was the cranker, for in Indo-China automobiles are not equipped with self-starters and the chauffeurs firmly refuse to crank their own cars. They thus "save their face," which is a very important consideration in the estimation of Orientals, and they also provide easy and pleasant jobs for their friends. It is an idea which some of the labor unions in America might adopt to advantage. I make no charge for the suggestion. The two Chinese, it appeared, were the joint owners of the machine, and both insisted on going along because neither would trust the other with the hire-money. Thus it will be seen, we made quite a cozy little party.

The road to Pnom-Penh, as I have already remarked, leads through a peculiarly lonely and savage region. And it is very narrow, bordered on either side by walls of almost impenetrable jungle. A place better adapted for a hold-up could hardly be devised. And of the reputations or antecedents of my four self-imposed companions, I knew nothing. Nor was there anything in their faces to lend me confidence in the honesty of their intentions. As we were about to start a native gendarme beckoned me to one side.

"Beaucoup des pirats sur la route, M'sieu," he warned me in execrable French.

"Brigands, you mean?" I asked him.

"Oui, M'sieu."

That was rea.s.suring.

"How about these men?" I inquired, indicating the motley crew who were to accompany me. "Are they to be trusted?"

He shrugged his shoulders non-commitally. It was evident that he did not hold of them a high opinion.

Producing my .45 caliber service automatic, I slipped a clip into the magazine and ostentatiously laid it beside me on the seat. It is the most formidable weapon carried by any civilized people. True, the German Luger is larger....

"Tell them," I said to the policeman, "that this gun will shoot through twenty millimeters of pine. Tell them that they had better dispose of their property and burn a few joss-sticks before they start to argue with it. And tell them that, no matter what happens, the car is to keep going."

But I was by no means as confident as I sounded, for the road was notoriously unsafe, nor did I put much trust in my companions. I confess that I felt much happier when that portion of my journey was over.

As the road to Pnom-Penh is quite uninteresting--just a narrow yellow highway chopped through a dense tangle of tropic vegetation--suppose I take advantage of the opportunity to tell you something of this little-known land in which we find ourselves.

French Indo-China occupies perhaps two-thirds of that great bay-window-shaped peninsula which protrudes from the southeastern corner of Asia. In area it is, as I have already remarked, somewhat larger than Texas; its population is about equal to that of New York and Pennsylvania combined. It consists of five states: the colony of Cochin-China, the protectorates of Cambodia, Annam and Tongking, and the unorganized territory of Laos, to which might be added the narrow strip of borderland, known as Kw.a.n.g Chau Wan, leased from China. In 1902 the capital of French Indo-China was transferred from Saigon, in Cochin-China, to Hanoi, in Tongking.

By far the most interesting of these political divisions is Cambodia, which, for centuries an independent kingdom, was forced in 1862 to accept the protection of France. An apple-shaped country, about the size of England, with a few score miles of seacoast and without railway or regular sea communications, it lies tucked away in the heart of the peninsula, its southern borders marching with those of Cochin-China, its frontier on the north co-terminous with that of Siam. Though the octogenarian King Sisowath maintains a gorgeous court, a stable of elephants, upwards of two-hundred dancing-girls, and one of the most ornate palaces in Asia, he is permitted only a shadow of power, the real ruler of Cambodia being the French Resident-Superior, who governs the country from the great white Residency on the banks of the Mekong.

I know of no region of like size and so comparatively easy of access (the great liners of the _Messageries Maritimes_ touch at Saigon, whence the Cambodian capital can be reached by river-steamer in two days) which offers so many attractions to the hunter of big game.

Unlike British East Africa, where, as a result of the commercialization of sport, the cost of going on _safari_ has steadily mounted until now it is a form of recreation to be afforded only by war profiteers, Cambodia remains unexploited and unspoiled. It is in many respects the richest, as it is almost the last, of the world's great hunting-grounds. It is, indeed, a vast zoological garden, where such formalities as hunting licenses are still unknown. In its jungles roam elephants, tigers, rhinoceroses, leopards, panthers, bear, deer, and the savage jungle buffalo, known in Malaya as the seladang and in Indo-China as the gaur--considered by many hunters the most dangerous of all big game.

Nailed to the wall of the Government rest-house at Kep was the skin of a leopard which had been shot from the veranda the day before my arrival, while raiding the pig-pen. The day that I left Kampot an elephant herd, estimated by the native trackers at one hundred and twenty head, was reported within seven miles of the town. Twice during the journey to Pnom-Penh I saw tracks of elephant herds on the road--it looked as though a fleet of whippet tanks had pa.s.sed.

Nevertheless, I should have put mental question-marks after some of the big game stories I heard while I was in Indo-China had I not been convinced of the credibility of those who told them. Only a few days before our arrival at Saigon, for example, an American engaged in business in that city set out one morning before daybreak, in a small car, for the paddy-fields, where there is excellent bird-shooting in the early dawn. The car, which, owing to the intense heat, had no wind-shield, was driven by the Annamite chauffeur, the American, a double-barrel loaded with bird-shot across his knees, sitting beside him on the front seat. Rounding a turn in the jungle road at thirty miles an hour, the twin beams of light from the lamps fell on a tiger, which, dazzled and bewildered by the on-coming glare, crouched snarling in the middle of the highway. There was no time to stop the car, and, as the jungle came to the very edge of the narrow road, there was no way to avoid the animal, which, just as the car was upon it, gathered itself and sprang. It landed on the hood with all four feet, its snarling face so close to the men that they could feel its breath. The American, thrusting the muzzle of his weapon into the furry neck of the great cat, let go with both barrels, blowing away the beast's throat and jugular vein and killing it instantly. With the aid of his badly frightened driver, he bundled the great striped carca.s.s into the tonneau of the car and imperturbably continued on his bird-shooting expedition. Some people seem to have a monopoly of luck.

Though Saigon and Pnom-Penh do not possess the facilities for equipping shooting expeditions afforded by Mombasa or Nairobi, and though in Indo-China there are no professional European guides, such as the late Major Cunninghame; the elaborate and costly outfits customary in East Africa, with their mile-long trains of bearers, are as unnecessary as they are unknown. The arrangements for a tiger hunt in Indo-China are scarcely more elaborate and certainly no more expensive, than for a moose hunt in Maine. A dependable native _shikari_ who knows the country, a cook, half-a-dozen coolies, a st.u.r.dy riding-pony, two or three pack-animals, a tent and food, that is all you need. With such an outfit, particularly in a region so thick with game as, say, the Dalat Plateau, in Annam, the hunter should get a shot at a tiger before he has been forty-eight hours in the bush. In a clearing in a jungle known to be frequented by tigers, the carca.s.s of a bullock, or, if that is unavailable, of a pig, is fastened securely to a stake and left there until it smells to high heaven. When its odor is of sufficient potency to reach the nostrils of the tiger, the hunter takes up his position in the edge of the clearing, or on a platform built in a tree if he believes in Safety First. For investigating the kill the tiger usually chooses the dimness of the early dawn or the semi-darkness which precedes nightfall. With no warning save a faint rustle in the undergrowth a lean and tawny form slithers on padded feet across the open--and the man behind the rifle has his chance. I have found, however, that even in tiger lands, tigers are by no means as plentiful as one's imagination paints them at home. It is easy to be a big-game hunter on the hearth-rug.

Pnom-Penh, the capital of Cambodia, stands on the west bank of the mighty Mekong, one hundred and seventy miles from the sea. Pnom, meaning "mountain," refers to the hill, or mound, ninety feet high, in the heart of the city; Penh was the name of a celebrated Cambodian queen. Until twenty years ago Pnom-Penh was a filthy and unsanitary native town, its streets ankle-deep with dust during the dry season and ankle-deep with mud during the rains. But with the coming of the French the flimsy, vermin-infested houses were torn down, the hog-wallows which served as thoroughfares were transformed into broad and well-paved avenues shaded by double rows of handsome trees, and the city was provided with lighting and water systems. The old-fashioned open water sewers still remain, however, lending to the place, a rich, ripe odor. Pnom-Penh possesses a s.p.a.cious and well ventilated motion-picture house, where Charlie Chaplin known to the French as "Charlot" and Fatty Arbuckle convulse the simple children of the jungle just as they convulse more sophisticated a.s.semblages on the other side of the globe.

But all that is most worth seeing in Pnom-Penh is cloistered within the mysterious walls of vivid pink which surround the Royal Palace. Here is the residence of His Majesty Prea Bat Samdach Prea Sisowath, King of Cambodia; here dwell the twelve score dancing-girls of the famous royal ballet and the hundreds of concubines and attendants comprising the royal harem; here are the stables of the royal elephants and the sacred zebus; here a congeries of palaces, pavilions, throne halls, dance halls, temples, shrines, kiosks, monuments, courtyards, and gardens the like of which is not to be found outside the covers of _The Thousand and One Nights_. It is an architectural extravaganza, a baccha.n.a.lia of color and design, as fantastic and unreal as the city of a dream. The steep-pitched, curiously shaped roofs are covered with tiles of every color--peac.o.c.k blue, vermilion, turquoise, emerald green, burnt orange; no inch of exposed woodwork has escaped the carver's cunning chisel; everywhere gold has been laid on with a spendthrift hand. And in this marvelous setting strut or stroll figures that might have stepped straight from the stage of _Sumurun_--fantastically garbed functionaries of the Household, shaven-headed priests in yellow robes, pompous mandarins in sweeping silken garments, bejeweled and bepainted dancing-girls. It is not real, you feel. It is too gorgeous, too bizarre. It is the work of stage-carpenters and scene-painters and costumers, and you are quite certain that the curtain will descend presently and that you will have to put on your hat and go home.

From the center of the great central court rises the famous Silver PaG.o.da. It takes its name from its floor, thirty-six feet wide and one hundred and twenty long, which is covered with pure silver. When the sun's rays seep through the interstices of the carving it leaps into a brilliancy that is blinding. On the high walls of the room are depicted in startling colors, scenes from the life of Buddha and realistic glimpses of h.e.l.l, for your Cambodian artist is at his best in portraying scenes of horror. The mural decorations of the Silver PaG.o.da would win the unqualified approval of an oldtime fire-and-brimstone preacher. Rearing itself roofward from the center of the room is an enormous pyramidal altar, littered with a heterogeneous collection of offerings from the devout. At its apex is a so-called Emerald Buddha--probably, like its fellow in Bangkok, of translucent jade--which is the guardian spirit of the place. But at one side of the altar stands the chief treasure of the temple--a great golden Buddha set with diamonds. The value of the gold alone is estimated at not far from three-quarters of a million dollars; at the value of the jewels one can only guess. It was made by the order of King Norodom, the brother and predecessor of the present ruler, the whole amazing edifice, indeed, being a monument into which that monarch poured his wealth and ambition. Ranged about the altar are gla.s.s cases containing the royal treasures--rubies, sapphires, emeralds and diamonds of a size and in a profusion which makes it difficult to realize that they are genuine. It is a veritable cave of Al-ed-Din. The covers of these cases are sealed with strips of paper bearing the royal cypher--nothing more. They have never been locked nor guarded, yet nothing has ever been stolen, for King Sisowath is to his subjects something more than a ruler; he is venerated as the representative of G.o.d on earth. For a Cambodian to steal from him would be as unthinkable a sacrilege as for a Roman Catholic to burglarize the apartments of the Pope. And should their religious scruples show signs of yielding to temptation, why, there are the paintings on the walls to warn them of the torments awaiting them in the hereafter. It struck me, however, that the Silver PaG.o.da offers a golden, not to say a jeweled opportunity to an enterprising American burglar.

On the south side of the courtyard containing the Silver PaG.o.da is a relic far more precious in the eyes of the natives, however, than all the royal treasures put together--a footprint of Buddha. It was left, so the priests who guard it night and day reverently explain, by the founder of their faith when he paid a flying visit to Cambodia. Over the footprint has been erected a shrine with a floor of solid gold.

Buddha did not do as well by Cambodia as by Ceylon, however, for whereas at Pnom-Penh he left the imprint of his foot, at Kandy he left a tooth. I know, for I have seen it.

In an adjacent courtyard is the Throne Hall, a fine example of Cambodian architecture, the gorgeous throne of the monarch standing on a dais in the center of a lofty apartment decorated in gold and green.

Close by is the Salle des Fetes, or Dance Hall, a modern French structure, where the royal ballet gives its performances. Ever since there have been kings in Cambodia each monarch has chosen from the daughters of the upper cla.s.ses two hundred and forty showgirls and has had them trained for dancing. These girls, many of whom are brought to the palace by their parents when small children and offered to the King, eventually enter the monarch's harem as concubines. Admission to the royal ballet is to a Cambodian maiden what a position in the Ziegfeld Follies is to a Broadway chorus girl. It is the blue ribbon of female pulchritude. Unlike Mr. Ziegfeld's carefully selected beauties, however, who frequently find the stage a stepping-stone to independence and a limousine, the Cambodian show-girl, once she enters the service of the King, becomes to all intents and purposes a prisoner. And Sisowath, for all his eighty-odd years, is a jealous master. Never again can she stroll with her lover in the fragrant twilight on the palm-fringed banks of the Mekong. Never again can she leave the precincts of the palace, save to accompany the King. The bars behind which she dwells are of gold, it is true, but they are bars just the same.

When I broached to the French Resident-Superior, who is the real ruler of Cambodia, the subject of taking motion-pictures within the royal enclosure, he was anything but encouraging.

"I'm afraid it's quite impossible," he told me. "The King is at his summer palace at Kampot, where he will remain for several weeks.

Without his permission nothing can be done. Moreover, the royal ballet, which is the most interesting sight in Cambodia, is never under any circ.u.mstances permitted to dance during his Majesty's absence."

"But why not telegraph the King?" I suggested, though with waning hope.

"Or get him on the telephone. Tell him how much the pictures would do to acquaint the American public with the attractions of his country; explain to him that they would bring here hundreds of visitors who otherwise would never know that there is such a place as Pnom-Penh.

More than that," I added diplomatically, "they would undoubtedly wake up American capitalists to a realization of Cambodia's natural resources. That's what you particularly want here, isn't it--foreign capital?"

That argument seemed to impress the shrewd and far-seeing Frenchman.

"Perhaps something can be done, after all," he told me. "I will send for the Minister of the Royal Household and ask him if he can communicate with the King. As soon as I learn something definite, you will hear from me."

The second day following I received a call from the chief of the political bureau.

"Everything has been arranged as you desired," was the cheering news with which he greeted me. "The _defile_ will take place in the grounds of the palace tomorrow morning. Already the necessary orders have been issued. Thirty elephants with their state housings; eighty ceremonial cars drawn by sacred bullocks; the royal body-guard in full uniform; a delegation of mandarins in court-dress; a hundred Buddhist priests attached to the royal temple; and, moreover, his Majesty has granted special permission an unheard-of thing, let me tell you!--for the royal ballet to give a performance expressly for you to-morrow afternoon on the terrace of the throne-hall. It will be a marvelous spectacle."

"Bully!" I exclaimed. "Won't you have a drink?"

"There is one thing I forgot to mention," the official remarked hesitatingly, as he sipped the gin sling which is the favorite drink of the tropics. "There will be a small charge for expenses--tips, you know, for the palace officials."

"Oh, that's all right," I replied lightly. "How much will the tips amount to?"

"Only about two hundred piastres," was the somewhat startling answer, for, at the then current rate of exchange a piastre was worth about $1.50 gold. "The resident will pay half of it, however, as he believes that the pictures will prove of great value to the country."

Yet most people think that tipping has reached its apogee in the United States!

[Ill.u.s.tration: The head of the pageant approaching the camera in the palace at Pnom-Penh

_Photo by the Goldwyn-Bray-Powell Malaysian Expedition_]